Seattle Times cannot fathom principled politics

With the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s imminent demise, the Seattle Times will soon become our city and our state’s undisputed “paper of record,” and as such it has a unique responsibility to credibly represent the interests of all our citizens. Unfortunately, publisher Frank Blethen seems determined to use his personal bullhorn to promote his own personal interests.

The Times‘ editorial arrogance is never more apparent than on a day like today, when Frank has his op/ed toadies print yet another editorial attacking the inheritance tax. Of course, it’s the usual divisive, propagandistic bullshit, but I was struck by the sentiments of one particular paragraph:

In our highly partisan world, the death tax has given Republican candidates a perennial bogeyman with which to raise funds from owners of family businesses. Why the Democrats donate this issue to the opposition we cannot fathom.

No, I suppose you can’t fathom this Frank, as in your dollar-and-sense world you apparently can’t comprehend why anybody would take a stand on principle over interest.

There are innumerable exigent matters facing our region and our nation, but I would hazard a guess that there is no other issue over the past few years to which the Times has devoted more editorial space than the dreaded death inheritance tax. And yet the editorial board can’t seem to manage to scrape up a couple of column inches to acknowledge the impending worldwide catastrophe that is global warming, or to apologize for viciously ridiculing Ron Sims 18 years ago when he attempted to show some leadership on this issue.

Republican values and policies create so many disincentives to work that, as long as Republicans are running the country, why the hell should anybody work? It makes no sense to work — at least, not on these guys’ terms.

“When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just ‘dime-store economics’ – intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don’t really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don’t. It all gets down to two simple words.

“The larger the labor supply, the cheaper it is. The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you’ll work …. If you are a wealthy elite – or a ‘wannabe’ like most dittoheads – your wealth, power and privilege is enhanced by a labor pool forced to work cheap.”

Now do you understand why Bush wants to give “guest worker” status to millions of illegal immigrants? Hell, he’d probably even let them attend flight schools and fly planes, if it’ll knock down pilot salaries and break the airline unions.

“Ladeez and gennulmun, gud mornings. Is you capitan spikking. Is hoping you to enjoy flight this mornings. My name is Ali bin Worken Foor bin Laden. Is graduated from flyink school three weeks ago and now is your capitan. We shud rich Chicago in about foor hours, if we rich it all. Yoo nivvir know, our flight might get a liddle, how you say, bumpy … ha-ha! Is gud joke, no? Half a gud day.”

Goldy and Roger and Gang you seem to like to play a Robin Hood game and rob those who are successful in life and want to pass on that success to others. Your Envy is blatant and you all know the additional tax revenue will be spent on someone else pet project like the cigarette settlements. Today the folks who support the death tax are nothing more than Marxist or the present day reference as Socialist Democrats. You also forget that the Socialist Democrats that run this state cannot keep open the schools in Seattle, because they do not utilize the resources properly today. Give more money to dump down a rat holes, light rail, monorail, freeway upgrades, baseball stadiums, and the streets in Seattle. Letâ€™s not forget all those committees that to place to study these failures to death. Yep steal more money from those who are successful and give it to the biggest losers to squatter away.

â€œIn this dispute, The Seattle Times Company is an interested party. We want to remain family-owned and independent. We think this desire is neither Democratic nor Republican, and we hope our senators think so, too. We ask our senators to support the compromise offered by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., to lower the death tax from 55 percent to 15 percent, which is the rate of tax on capital gains. We believe it is in their political interest to do it. And it is the right thing to do.â€

Can somebody make the moral case why gummint should steal the assets of a person upon their death? Or is it just good ol’ fashioned gummint greed? Why shouldn’t a person be able to pass on their estate to whomever they choose?

Why hasn’t anyone here talked about this lack of principled politics! Howard Dean lying about your party platform! You know, when he said, “The Democratic Party platform from 2004 says that marriage is between a man and a woman. That’s what it says.”

1. Your Chi^2 analysis of the climatological data that proves the scientific consensus is wrong. Good luck with that, brother, since the data violate the assumptions necessary for the test (oh…that and the fact that you don’t know the scientific literature on the topic).

2. Making good on you $100 bet with Goldy. You admitted that you had a bet and that you lost. When are you going to pay up?

Don’t rush Mark the Retarded Redneck. . .he’s already spent this month’s welfare. If it wasn’t for the convenience store down on the corner that’ll trade mouthwash for foodstamps, he’d have nothing to drink the rest of the month.

I am still waiting for people here to tell why it was ok for Howard to sell out the gay vote and lie on the 700 club. Heck only one dem in this state is calling him on it. Even has the video on his site. Why won’t anyone here call Dean on it. Check out, Howard Dean – Open mouth and insert big shoe

Bob – great idea. Let’s have the lower half start picking up their share of the tab. In fact, let’s do a flat tax where everybody pays 15%. Put a stop to all this robin hood bullshit.

Commentby Mark The Redneck Kennedy [………………………………………..MTR Kennedy, 50% of Americans pay little or no income tax. All 50% of these individuals believe others should pay more. A lot more. These people are called Marxist Democrat “progressives”.]

Let’s be clear: The position argued by Redneck, Frank Blethen, Mr. Cynical, and other greedy, selfish bastards that multi-million-dollar inheritances should not be taxed while people making barely enough to live (or less) have to pay taxes is IMMORAL.

By the way, there’s no such think as a death tax. The dead don’t pay taxes. Inheritance taxes are paid by the living upon their receipt of INCOME they didn’t earn or work for, which, by the way, receives extremely favorable tax treatment compared to income non-millionaires have to work for. I sure as hell wish the first $1.5 million of my wages were exempt from taxation.

Listening to Republicans bitch and moan about inheritance taxes is almost as nauseating as their preaching about how they “work hard.” Republicans don’t work. The whole point of being a Republican is to live off other people’s work.

With the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s imminent demise, the Seattle Times will soon become our city and our state’s undisputed “paper of record,”

You are wrong about that. The Seattle Times is not a “paper of record”, to be such would mean they report facts. Email the editors and ask them if they consider themselves a newspaper of record. They do not.

Goldy, Roger I agree the state needs and deserves our money and has every right to take it at will. You wouldn’t want individual initiative to get the upper hand. You guys are very clear thinking on this: government generates wealth – not individual drive; therefore if a private citizen happens to attain great wealth the state should take it all away from him because the state, in essence, gave him that wealth in the first place. Government is all; everything the government does is wonderful, efficient and just; why look at the brilliant way it handles our children’s education; just marvellous (and just). You can never give the government too much money; when it comes to wealth generation, the state knows best and I thank you guys for affirming this fact (any other view is, in Goldy’s words, propagandistic bullshit”.) The brilliance of your economic analysis is unsurpassed; I didn’t think such brilliance possible; thank you and thank you again and again…

And by the way DJ… Evergreen is NOT a “tier 1” university. It’s where you go when you can’t get a real job and just want to be a parasite consuming the life energy of the Producers while you pursue your kooky religion.

Have ya ever noticed…. people who don’t have any money and never will… always think they know better than us “rich” people how we should manage our money. And somehow, they figure they should be on the receiving end of things.

Here’s an idea…. when you fucking losers stop being stoopid lazy immoral assholes… and then get some marketable skills, and then work your ass off for a few decades… then you can get a vote on what the Producers should do with their money. Until then, shut the fuck up.

The way around the liberal thievery of taxing money twice and thrice is simply to give it to you heirs before you pass away.

I believe I can give each of my kids up to $10,000 per year with no tax implications. I can certainly quit-claim any property to them, hand over jewelry, silver and other valuables. I can start transferring stock holdings to minor children…

In 2005, the net value of an individual’s estate must exceed the basic exemption of $2 million. Couples can exempt $4 million. This exemption level will gradually rise to $3.5 million for an individual ($7 million for a couple) by 2009. Small businesses and farms have long enjoyed additional protections.

In 2006, the wealthiest 0.27% of Americans are the only ones who pay estate taxes. In 2001, over half of all estate taxes were paid by 3,502 people with estates larger than $5 million — representing the top 0.14% of all Americans.

In addition, people with estates large enough to have to pay the estate tax also have money to pay attorneys to do estate planning. They give gifts before they die, and they buy insurance policies to pay the taxes on their estates.

Let’s be clear: The position argued by Redneck, Frank Blethen, Mr. Cynical, and other greedy, selfish bastards that multi-million-dollar inheritances should not be taxed while people making barely enough to live (or less) have to pay taxes is IMMORAL.

Commentby Roger Rabbit— 6/4/06@ 3:04 pm

Roger it is not immoral for the poor to pay Taxes, besides it is their ownership to the government process. Without paying any taxes you by default give your vote to some Socialist Democrat to do your bidding. Now if you pay taxes, then the voter have a vested interest in the system, and will vote for who will represent them. But then you believe in the Marxist system where the government knows best how to spend your money, and disturb it to those who think they need it the most. What is really IMMORAL is the Maoist who took over the Democrat Party to promote Karl Marx’s Dream.

Klake – You are 100% correct. Not only is it not immoral for the poor to pay taxes, it is their civic duty. And of course the kooky notion of “progressive” taxation is also just a shade of gray of Karl Marx’s dream.

The problem with “vested interest” as you mention above is what kind of interest the voter has. If his interest is to ensure that his money is spent wisely that’s one thing. If you fucked up your life through your own bad choices and want somebody else to pick up the tab, that’s another matter which shouldn’t be allowed.

progressive taxes didn’t come from Karl Marx, they came from the likes of Ben Franklin, Adam Smith, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Judeo-Christian concepts of those with the greatest ability to pay. I notice many advocate pulling one’s self up by the bootstraps, unless of course you were born wealthy. This country was founded in part on the fundamental unfairness of the European social system. How could the son’s of peasants compete with the son’s of Earls, Viceroys, and Kings?

HEY A.A. #42!! Why don’t you commies move back to your commune or mother Russia! This country was built on the backs of sweaty people passing their self worth on to their kids! Why do you keep trying to bleed us dry??

Can you belive how smart he is? The incredible brilliance of the man: rich people are bad and greedy and poor people deserve all their money. Now that is what I call analysis. But, wait. Roger’s defect is his overly large heart and overflowing kindness. Why should we stop at taxing the rich? Isn’t that going a bit to lighly on such IMMORAL people? Why don’t we just kill them off?

One thing is for sure; we absolutely cannot do without types like Roger to help us identify who is moral and who is immoral when we begin the eliminations. I would venture to say that a person like Roger, who can tell us who is good and who is bad, is even more valuable to society than a rich person. The rich you can always tax to death but person’s with Roger’s extreme powers of discernment, coupled with the willpower to exterminate are exceedingly rare.

Well “dumbass”, I’m glad that another opinion can add to the free flowing exchange of ideas. Too bad you couldn’t think your way out of a wet paper bag! Maybe if you turned off the “Rush” channel, an original thought might occur. Let us know if that happens!

Speaking of editorials and self-interest, the Seattle Times distinguished itself by faiing to support Jim McDermott in defending his First Amendment case against GOP majority leader Rep. John Boehner.

IN fact they editorialized against McDermott’s defense of free speech interests:

“McDermott says it is a matter of principle: the right of the people to know what their government is doing. That is a right frequently invoked, but in practice it is a kind of general interest shared by the press and the public.

News organizations have their interests, and we note that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post have joined with McDermott. Here, we think, they pursue their interests and excuse wrongdoing.”

THe “wrongdoing” in question is the disclosure of others’ wrongdoing — specifically in this case, recorded evidence of the Speaker of the House violating his plea bargain with the Ethics Committe … but the case would revoke every reporter, publisher and blogger’s right to publish any leaker’s disclosure of wrongdong by any public official.

If the Times appreciation of the institution of a free press, it’s about anything, it’s about “special rules for special people”.

David: The first prediction I ever heard of the P-I’s “imminent demise” was made 28 1/2 years ago by a senior aide in Paul Schell’s 1977 campaign for mayor of Seattle. He was without a job six weeks later. I still have one nearly three decades later. Predicting the outcome of Seattle’s newspaper war is about as risky as betting on Richard Pope in his next bid for public office.

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